The Ottoman Empire

People

Armies

Places

Battles

The Ottoman Empire was founded out of the demise of the Seljuk Sultanate of Rum when many of the patchwork of independent Ghazi states were united under the leadership of Osman I. In the following century, Osman’s son Orhan captured the city of Bursa (1324) and made it the capital of the new Ottoman state. In 1354, Murad II crossed over into Europe and extended Ottoman territory into the Balkans and northern Greece. The Ottoman victory at Kosovo in 1389 marked the end of Serbian power in the region and, at the Battle of Nicopolis, Bayezid I demonstrated the might of the disciplined Turkish army when it defeated the flower of Christendom. In 1402, the Ottomans suffered a fifty-year setback when their army was destroyed at Ankara by the Mongol Tamerlane but, by 1460, Constantinople and the Byzantine Empire had fallen to Mehmed II. Over the next century, the Turks drove into Europe as far as the gates of Vienna (besieged three times but not taken) and to the east, gaining control of Persia and then Egypt under Selim I. By the end of Suleiman the Magnificent’s reign (1520-66), the empire’s population numbered 15,000,000 extending over three continents. After around 1700, the empire went into a long, slow 200-year decline until it was only being kept together by competing European powers, none of which wanted it taken by the other. In the First World War (1914-18), it sided with the Axis Powers and the empire was finally dismembered at the Treaty of Versailles in 1919.

BAYEZID
Bayezid was born in 1354, the son of Murad I and Valide Sultan Gulcicek Hatun. He succeeed his father in 1389 when Murad was assassinated by a Serbian knight after the Battle of Kosovo which made Serbia a vassal of the Ottoman empire. Immediately upon taking the throne, Bayezid had his younger brother strangled. He took the daughter of Prince Lazar of Serbia, Despina Olivera, as a wife and recognized her brother, Stefan, as Serbia’s new vassal ruler. From 1389 to 1395, he conquered Bulgaria and Northern Greece. In 1395, he suffered his only defeat by King Mircea of Wallachia. In 1394, he laid siege to Constantinople but, in 1396, was forced to confront a western crusade that had been sent to relieve it at the battle of Nicopolis. He won a resounding victory and chose to execute 2,000 Christian knights taken prisoner on the battlefield in the aftermath, After the battle, he immediately laid siege to Constantinople again and was on the point of taking it, when Tamerlane invaded his territories from the east. At the Battle of Ankara, the Ottoman army was defeated and Bayezid taken prisoner. He was kept in a cage by Tamerlane and died a year later in 1403. Bayezid was known as ‘Yildirim’ which means ‘Thunderbolt’, owing to his speed of campaigning.

SULEYMAN CELEBI
Suleyman was the eldest son of Bayezid. His mother is unknown. He fought well at the Battle of Nicopolis (1396) when he was just nineteen. Six years later, he was given command of the army’s left flank when Bayezid fought Tamerlane at the field of Ankara. As the battle became lost, he fled the battlefield with the Grand Vizier Candarli Ali Pasha and crossed to Europe, the Byzantines ferrying him across the Bosphorous. He signed a peace treaty with the Byzantines in 1403, giving back some coastal territory and the city of Thessaloniki. He declared himself Sultan of the empire in Rumelia. But once Tamerlane had left Anatolia, his two brothers, Isa and Mehmed challenged him for the Asian part. An Ottoman civil war followed, the first part of which Suleyman won. He captured Bursa in 1406. But when a third brother, Musa, confronted him in Rumelia (with the support of the Byzantines and Wallachians), Suleyman’s army deserted him and he was eventually murdered by villagers outside Edirne in 1411 as he was trying to make his escape.

MEHMED I CELEBI
Mehmed was the third of Bayezid’s sons. He was the son of Devlet Hatun who was the sister of the Germiyan gazi tribe chief, Prince Yakub II. Mehmed was captured by Tamerlane at the battle of Ankara and released two years later when he set up base in the northern stronghold of Amasya. He was too weak to defeat his brother Suleyman in the Ottoman Civil War but managed to send his younger brother Musa to open another front in Rumelia which eventually toppled Suleyman in 1411. But Musa was a fanatic and rapidly turned the local nobles against him, which provided the opportunity Mehmed needed to defeat him. He crossed to Europe, won the Battle of Camurlu and ended the civil war. he proclaimed himself Sultan in 1413. During the eight years of Mehmed’s reign, he expanded the empire but remained at peace with the Byzantine empire who had helped him gain the throne. He died in 1421 and is widely known as ‘the second founder of the Ottoman Empire.

YAKUB II OF GERMIYAN
Yakub Celebi was the fourth ruler of the Germiyan beylik in central Anatolia between 1388 and 1429. The beylik was one of the largest principalities in Turkey and had been formed after the disintegration of the Seljuk dynasty. It’s capital was Kutahya. In his early reign, Yakub accepted the suzerainty of the Ottoman Empire but, following the death of Murad I on the field of Kosovo, Yakub seized the opportunity to extend his territories westwards. As a result, Bayezid returned to Anatolia, defeated Yakub and imprisoned him for ten years in the castle of Ipsala. In 1399, Yakub escaped and met Tamerlane, with whom he made a secret treaty. At the Battle of Ankara, he fought on the side of Tamerlane. During the ensuing Ottoman Civil War, Yakub supported Mehmed. Yakub had no son and , at his death in 1429, the beylik ceased to exist.

STEFAN LAZAREVIC
Stefan Lazarevic was the son of Prince Lazar of Serbia who died at the Battle of Kosovo in 1389. As an Ottoman vassal, he fought under Bayezid at the Battles of Rovine, Nicopolis and Ankara, earning a reputation as one of the most gifted military leaders of his generation. His sister, Olivera Despina, was one of Bayezid’s wives. After Ankara, the Byzantines granted Stefan the title of Despot of Serbia and he became vassal to King Sigismund of Hungary who gave him Belgrade for his capital. During the Ottoman civil war, Stefan was challenged for the throne by his brother Duk and others. He emerged victorious in 1412. During his reign, silver production in Serbia increased significantly and the country became rich. This allowed Stefan to become a great patron of the arts and he built a Court centered on learning and culture. Stefan Lazarevic died suddenly in 1427 and was succeeded by his nephew Durad Brankovic.

JANISSERIES
The Janissary Corps of the Ottoman army was made up of slaves. Some were recruited from prisoners of war. Others came through the Devirsme or ‘levy of tribute children’ which was begun soon after Sultan Murad crossed over to Europe in the early 1360’s and occupied Thrace. Once every five years, the Sultan’s men would arrive at Christian villages and take one child from every forty households. They would be taken to Anatolia and there trained in the ways of Islam. Thereafter they would be sent to serve either in an administrative or military role. If the latter, most would become janissaries. They were not allowed to marry and would retire as janissaries after their service. The title of Kul or ‘slave’ was one carried with pride and dignity and many parents offered their children to the Devirsme, knowing that it could be a path to advancement within the empire. In Bayezid’s time, there may have been two or three thousand janissaries within the Ottoman army. They were all archers and distinguished by their tall white hats. Their most famous symbol was the Kazan, a large copper cooking pot that was each Orta’s (corp’s) most treasured possession.

SIPAHIS
The Sipahis comprised all of the mounted troops of the Ottoman army other than akincis and the gazi tribal horsemen from Anatolia. At the time of the Mistra Chronicles, most of these were the timarli sipahi (timariots) who were akin to western feudal knights in that they held a fief of land (timar) granted directly by the sultan, and were entitled to all income from that land in exchange for military service. A timar Sipahi was also obliged to supply the army with up to five retainers, armed and mounted at his expense. In contrast to the janissaries, Timarli Sipahis were always ethnic Turks. If a battle was fought in Europe, Rumeli Sipahis would take the honorary right flank of the army. If the battle was fought in Asia, the positions were reversed and the Anatolian Sipahis took the right flank. The janissary infantry and archers would take the centre. Anatolian Sipahis were equipped and fought as horse-archers, while those from Rumelia wore chain mail, rode barded horses and carried lances. The Kapikulu Sipahis were the household cavalry troops of the Ottoman Sultan.

BASHIBOZOUKS
The literal translation of Bashibozouk is ‘damaged head’ meaning ‘disorderly.’ These were the irregulars of the Ottoman army, armed but not paid by the Sultan, who wore no uniforms and were motivated to fight by expectations of plunder. Though most fought on foot, some (akinci) rode on horseback. They were largely incapable of regimented military manoeuvre but were often used as the first wave in an attack when their fierce look, and hideous war cries, would strike terror into the enemy. At sieges they would often fall in their thousands to breach the enemy wall, at which point the Janissaries would take over to do the precision work. Their best hope, apart from plunder, would be the granting of a timar or fief of land through some act of bravery, in which case they would be elevated to the Sipahi class. They were notorious for being brutal and undisciplined.

BURSA
Situated on the northwestern slopes of Mount Uludag, Bursa was the capital of the Ottoman State between 1326 and 1365, until it was supplanted by Edirne in Rumelia. It was taken from the Byzantines in 1326 and, until the capture of Constantinople in 1453, remained the most important commercial centre in the empire as well as the ‘Throne City’ where the Sultans were buried. Bayezid I built the Great Mosque (Ulu Cami) between 1396 and 1400 in recognition of his great victory at Nicopolis. After its release from Tamerlane, Bayezid’s body was taken to Bursa for burial. In terms of trade, the city was a major centre of silk production, importing raw silk from Iran and China and making all of the silk products for the Ottoman palaces.

EDIRNE
Edirne was called Adrianople (founded by the Roman Emperor Hadrian) until taken by the Ottoman Sultan Murad I who turned it into the capital of the growing Ottoman Empire. Situated in eastern Thrace, it remained the capital for nearly a century until replaced by Constantinople after the city’s capture in 1453. Sultan Mehmed II, who conquered Constantinople, was born there. Suleyman, Bayezid’s eldest son, used Edirne as his capital during the Ottoman civil wars (1402-13) and was murdered close to Edirne after the city fell to his brother Musa. The ultimate victor of the civil war, Mehmed I, used it as his capital until his death in 1421. Today it contains the magnificent Selimiye Mosque, built in 1575 by the architect Mimar Sinan.

THE BATTLE OF KOSOVO
The Battle of Kosovo took place on June 15th 1389 between a Serbian army under Prince Lazar Hrebeljanovic and an invading Ottoman army under Murad I. The Ottoman Turks won the battle but at huge cost in lives to both sides, including Prince Lazar and Murad, who was assassinated by a Serbian knight after the battle. It became known as the ‘Field of the Blackbirds’ because of the number of birds that picked out the eyes of the dead. It was the first time that the Ottomans had come face to face with European Medeival knights and the result sent shock-waves through the capitals of Europe. As a result, Serbia became a vassal state of the Ottoman Turks and Prince Lazar’s successor, Prince Stefan Lazarevic, fought alongside Murad’s successor Bayezid at the battles of Nicopolis and Ankara.

THE BATTLE OF ROVINE
The Battle of Rovine took place on 17th May 1395 between the Wallachian army under the Voivod Mircea, which numbered around 10,000 men, and the Ottoman invasion force force of some 40,000, led by Sultan Bayezid I. The battle took place near the Arges River. Prince Stefan Lazarevic, who had become vassal to the Sultan at the Battle of Kosovo in 1389, was involved on the side of the Ottoman Turks. The Turks made the first assault but their ranks were decimated by the Wallachian archers. Then the Voivod’s cavalry charged and put the Turks and Serbians to the rout. Enormous casualties were sustained by both sides. Although the battle was won by Wallachia and the Turks pulled back from their invasion, Voivod Mircea was unable to exploit his victory and the Turks retired, able to fight another day (in fact the Battle of Nicopolis a year later, in which they destroyed a crusade sent from the west to relieve the Turkish siege of Constantinople).

THE BATTLE OF ANKARA
The Battle of Ankara, fought on 20 July 1402, was one of the most important battles in history. The Ottoman Turks, under Sultan Bayezid, were besieging the Byzantine capital of Constantinople and were on the point of taking it, when the Mongol Tamerlane invaded their empire from the east, sacking the Ottoman city of Sivas. Bayezid led his army across Anatolia and finally came to battle with Tamerlane north east of the fortress of Ankara. The armies both numbered around 200,000 men and Bayezid’s included the Serbian army of Prince Stefan Lazarevic who was his vassal, as well as Voivod Mircea’s army of Wallachians. The Ottoman army began the battle thirsty as Tamerlane had diverted the Cubuk Creek into a series of reservoirs. The Ottoman army was defeated and Bayezid captured and placed in a cage by Tamerlane. He died a year later. As a result of the battle, the siege of Constantinople was lifted and the sons of Bayezid plunged themselves into a bitter civil war which lasted for eleven years. Arguably, the battle bought another fifty years for the Byzantine Empire and saved the Italian Renaissance which was just beginning. There has been speculation that the wily Byzantines were instrumental in bringing Tamerlane west to fight Bayezid.

THE BATTLE OF NICOPOLIS
The Battle of Nicopolis, fought on 25th September 1396, could be considered the 9/11 moment of European medieval history. Although the Ottoman Turks had already confronted, and beaten, a European (Serbian) army at the Battle of Kosovo in 1389, the crusade that was sent east from France and Burgundy in 1396 numbered the flower of Christian chivalry among its ranks. It could, it was said, ‘hold up the sky with its lances.’ But the army, led by the inexperienced son of the Duke of Burgundy, the Comte de Nevers, was complacent and marched eastwards at a leisurely pace, feasting and jousting as it went. In Hungary it was joined by the more serious Hungarian army under King Sigismund, and armies from Wallachia and Transylvania. However, when they reached the fortress of Nicopolis on the Danube, there was disagreement over strategy amongst the leaders and the French and Burgundian knights insisted on the right of ‘Avante Garde’ which involved charging headlong into the Ottoman prepared defenses. The result was the slaughter of the knights, such that they were unable to resist a counter-attack by the Serbian heavy cavalry. Meanwhile, the Hungarian, Wallachian and Transylvanian forces were far behind and were unable to loin the battle until it was too late. This was a resounding victory for Bayezid who celebrated by executing his share of the prisoners, some 2,000 Christian knights.

Timurid Empire

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The Timurid Empire was established over thirty violent years by the Mongol Tamerlane, (known then as ‘Timur-the-Lame’), who was born in 1336 to a Chief of the Barlas Tribe in what is today Kazakhstan. His brutal leadership combined other Mongol tribes beneath him and, between 1363 and 1380 he conquered much of Central Asia. In 1380, he began to push west with the ambition of reuniting the four Mongol Ilkhanates left by Genghis Khan, including the Golden Horde of Russia, which he defeated in 1395. He defeated the Sultanate of Delhi in 1398 and then devastated Persia and Syria before finally defeating the Ottoman Turks under Bayezid at the Battle of Ankara in 1402. He died on the border of China in 1405, poised to complete the final unification of Kublai Khan’s Chinese Empire into the other three Ilhanates. Tamerlane was a conquerer, not an administrator, and the empire quickly began to unravel as the family fell into disputes and civil wars. However Ulugh beg (1394-1449), Tamerlane’s grandson, ruled from Samarcand over a flowering of culture and science, building his famous observatory there between 1424-29. He has a crater on the Moon named after him. By 1520, the Timurid Empire had lost control of most of its territory to the Persian Safavid Dynasty and the Uzbeks who founded the Khanate of Bokhara. However, the Mughal Empire of Northern India was established by Babur, a descendant of Tamerlane, in 1526 and by the 17th century, the Mughal Dynasty ruled most of India. The Timurid Dynasty finally came to an end after the Indian Mutiny in 1857.

TAMERLANE
It is said that Timur- the-Lame, so called because of an early wound suffered whilst horse-rustling, was born with blood on his hands. It was an apt beginning because he was to go on to murder perhaps 5% of the world’s population over thirty brutal years. Tamerlane was a Mongol, born of the Barlas tribe in what is today Kazakhstan. From 1363 onwards, he conquered large parts of Central Asia and. By 1370, was recognized as ruler over the Mongol tribes. He began his campaign westwards in 1380, invading the various successor states to the Ilkhanates of Genghis Khan. In 1394-95, he defeated the Golden Horde of Russia and diverted the Silk Road south, thus adding to his wealth and the embellishment of his capital, Samarcand. He left Delhi in ruins in 1398 and took the Indian ruler’s war elephants for his own. Between 1400 and 1402, Aleppo, Damascus and Baghdad fell and their citizens were massacred. In 1402, he defeated the Ottoman Turks at the Battle of Ankara. He died in 1405, on the Chinese border, embarked on the final part of the Khanate re-unification: the former empire of Kublai Khan. Tamerlane was illiterate but a brilliant military strategist. He invented a new way to play chess, ‘The Great Game’, which involved a bigger board and more pieces. Today, he is the national hero of the modern state of Uzbekhistan.

TAMERLANE’S ARMY
Tamerlane led a mixed army built around a core of faithful Turco-Mongol troops, the 40 tribes from Transoxiana which claimed Jagatai Mongol origin. Of these, the best were formed into an elite guard unit known as gautchin. It was usual for defeated troops to be enlisted in Tamerlane’s army, though his tendency for massacre must have reduced the recruit pool. He certainly recruited elephants from his Delhi campaign which were trained to advance in short rushes, swinging their tusks to which giant scimitars were attached. However the mass of his army were horse archers who could fire arrows in quick succession from powerful composite bows. The army had skilled siege engineers and siege engines and, unlike Genghis Khan’s, was adept at siege warfare. The main instrument used, however, was terror. Unlike Genghis Khan who massacred for a reason, Tamerlane often indulged in pointless acts of sadism and comprehensive destruction. In Sistan, in Southern Afghanistan, an entire agriculture system was so ruined that it hasn’t recovered to this day. Many central Asian civilizations were damaged beyond repair. It is estimated that this army killed perhaps 5% of the world’s population in thirty bloody years.

VISITING UZBEKISTAN
They don’t make it easy to visit Uzbekistan these days, but once you’ve got through the labyrinthine visa process, the journey is more than worthwhile. The doubly land-locked country was, until 20 years ago, part of the Soviet empire and its capital, Tashkent, still has all the monumental central planning hallmarks of the communist era. It is also full of statues and pictures of the national hero, Tamerlane, despite him being responsible for the wiping out of perhaps 5% of the world’s population, and not actually being Uzbek. No, the point of going to Uzbekistan is to visit the three fabulous cities of Samarcand, Bokhara and Khiva, all of which have unremarkable boutique hotels, good cuisine and masses of forts, registans (squares), mosques (Bokhara has one for every day of the years) and other antiquities. You can’t hire a car but internal flights are cheap and easy. And the Uzbeks are completely charming!

THE BATTLE OF ANKARA
The Battle of Ankara, fought on 20 July 1402, was one of the most important battles in history. The Ottoman Turks, under Sultan Bayezid, were besieging the Byzantine capital of Constantinople and were on the point of taking it, when the Mongol Tamerlane invaded their empire from the east, sacking the Ottoman city of Sivas. Bayezid led his army across Anatolia and finally came to battle with Tamerlane north east of the fortress of Ankara. The armies both numbered around 200,000 men and Bayezid’s included the Serbian army of Prince Stefan Lazarevic who was his vassal, as well as Voivod Mircea’s army of Wallachians. The Ottoman army began the battle thirsty as Tamerlane had diverted the Cubuk Creek into a series of reservoirs. The Ottoman army was defeated and Bayezid captured and placed in a cage by Tamerlane. He died a year later. As a result of the battle, the siege of Constantinople was lifted and the sons of Bayezid plunged themselves into a bitter civil war which lasted for eleven years. Arguably, the battle bought another fifty years for the Byzantine Empire and saved the Italian Renaissance which was just beginning. There has been speculation that the wily Byzantines were instrumental in bringing Tamerlane west to fight Bayezid.

THE BATTLE OF AIN JALUT
The Battle of Ain Jalut was fought on 3rd September 1260 between the Mamluk Empire of Egypt and the Mongols. The battle took place in Galilee in the Jezreel Valley. Its importance lies in the fact that it was the first time that the Mongol advance had been checked in open battle, and Egypt (and possibly Europe) was delivered from the Mongol hordes. The Mongol Mongke Khan, grandson of Genghis Khan, had chosen his brother Hulagu Khan to complete his grandfather’s ambition of world empire. An enormous army was assembled in Persia and Hulagu proceeded south, destroying whole civilisations in his path, including the 500-year-old Abbasid Caliphate of Baghdad and the Ayyubid dynasty in Damascus. But on the death of Mongke, Hulagu returned east with much of his army. Thus the 20,000-strong Mamluk army under Qutuz and Baibars faced a similar number of Mongols. The battle was fiercely fought but ultimately won by the Mamluks who used explosive handguns to frighten the Mongol horses. Shortly after the battle, Qutuz was assassinated and Baibars became Sultan.

The Ming Dynasty

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The Empire of the Great Ming was the ruling dynasty of China for 276 years (1368-1644) and followed the collapse of the Yuan Dynasty founded by Genghis Khan’s grandson Kublai Khan. It was the last Chinese dynasty to be ruled by ethnic Han Chinese. It was founded by the Hongwu Emperor (1368-98), a penniless peasant who joined the ‘Red Turban’ rebellion of 1351 and overthrew the last Yuan Emperor in 1368. Zhu Di, the third Emperor, was his son and named himself the Yongle Emperor (ruled 1402-24). He was a vastly ambitious ruler who moved the capital to Beijing, built the Forbidden City and repaired the Grand Canal so that grain could be shipped from the south to feed the million-strong workforce. Helped to the throne by the eunuch faction, he restored their power and made Zheng He commander of vast Treasure Fleets that set sail on seven voyages around the world to spread Chinese power. Zhu Di’s downfall was made certain when the Forbidden City burnt down and the Confuscian scholar-beaurocrat faction re-took control. The rise of new emperors and new factions ended such extravagences and China effectively closed her doors to the rest of the world from the 1430’s onwards. During a time of peace and good governance, the population of China doubled from 65million in 1400 to 125million in 1500. The dynasty fell when a slowdown in agriculture produced by the Little Ice Age in the 1600’s led to crop failure, floods and epidemic. The dynasty was thought to have lost the Mandate of Heaven and collapsed before the rebel leader Li Zicheng and a Manchurian invasion.

MING DYNASTY EARLY FOREIGN POLICY
The first Ming Emperor, Hongwu (1368-98) decreed that the threat to China lay from the north which was under Mongol control and in 1382, 250,000 troops attacked, taking Dali, Lijang and Jinchi. In 1387, however, he ventured south, taking the Baiyi region. In his annexation of states, Hongwu set the precedent of exacting tribute from vassals, including labour levies including troop provision. The Hongwu reign was marked by envoys being sent to maritime trading partners such as Vietnam, Cambodia, Japan and Korea. These countries were drawn to China by the trade concessions available to tribute envoys. In the Yongle reign, the new emperor was keen to advertise the cultural superiority of the Ming to the rest of the known world and the Treasure Fleets sent out under the command of the eunuch Zheng He were not only sent to exact tribute from new vassal states but also to spread Chinese knowledge. A number of military expeditions were sent into South East Asia and a large part of Vietnam was taken. But the extraction of skilled workers to work on Ming projects, and the extraction of vast quantities of timber to build the Treasure fleets resulted in a long war which the Ming, ultimately lost. It was this war that, in large part, led to the internal pressures that allowed the Confuscian Scholar Class to reassert its control over the empire.

YONG LE EMPEROR
Zhu Di was the third emperor of the Ming Dynasty of China and ruled from 1402 to 1424. Born in 1360, Zhu Di was the fourth son of the Hongwu Emperor, the first of the Ming Dynasty. He initially accepted the appointment of his teenage nephew Zhu Yunwen as crown prince but rose in rebellion against him when his life became threatened. With the support of the eunuchs, who had been mistreated by Hongwu’s favouring of the Mandarin Confuscian scholar-bureaucrat class, he became emperor in 1402. He declared his new era the ‘Yongle’ or time of ‘perpetual happiness’. Zhu Di was an over-achiever who tried to do too much too quickly. He moved the capital to Beijing and repaired the Grand Canal to bring grain from the south to feed the million workers employed to build the ‘Forbidden City’. He assembled 2,500 scholars to produce the ‘Yongle Diadan’, an encyclopedia that encompassed all Chinese knowledge to date. He built vast fleets, ‘Treasure Fleets’, which sailed under the Admiral eunuch Zheng He and may have reached America decades before Columbus. After the opening of the ‘Forbidden City’ in 1420, a great fire destroyed large parts of it, and this, together with ruinous campaigns against the Vietnamese in the south and the Mongols in the north, brought about his downfall. He died in 1424.

ZHENG HE
Zheng He was a eunuch who, under Zhu Di, the Yong le Emperor, commanded eight sea voyages of trade and discovery, using vast ‘Treasure Fleets’, around the world between 1405 and 1433. He rose to prominence when he assisted the Yong le emperor in a coup d’etat against his nephew, the reigning emperor (despite the fact that he’d been castrated when a Ming army had sacked his home town of Yunnan). He gained the trust of Zhu Di, helping him to take the throne, and thereafter served in the highest post as Grand Director before being appointed Admiral of the vast fleets that were launched to extract tribute from the rest of the world. Eight of these voyages were undertaken over a period of nearly thirty years and were unprecedented in their scale and ambition. Zheng He died during the last of these voyages during the reign of Zhu Di’s grandson, the Xuande Emperor, in 1433. On the fleet’s return, the voyages were abandoned in 1436 and China effectively closed its doors to the rest of the world for 500 years.

THE TREASURE VOYAGES
The Treasure Voyages were the seven maritime expeditions mounted by the Ming Dynasty between the years 1405-33. The were started by Zhu Di, the Yongle Emperor, and commanded by his eunuch admiral Zheng He. They were extraordinary voyages of trade and discovery undertaken by fleets of hundreds of ships crammed with soldiers, scholars and explorers. Their purpose was partly to extend Chinese trade and influence across the world and partly to exact tribute from so called ‘vassal’ nations (ie everyone who wasn’t Chinese). There is much debate as to how far they ventured but they certainly got as far as the east coast of Africa and the Arabian Gulf. The writer Gavin Menzies conjectures that they discovered America seventy years before Columbus and brought Chinese technology to Florence and the Italian Renaissance. At the centre of these fleets were giant ‘Treasure Ships’ that were more than ten times bigger than anything else afloat in the west. The cost of these expeditions became crippling to the Chinese economy and when the Confuscian Scholar Class resumed control from the eunuchs in the 1430’s, they were stopped For the next 500 years, China was to shut its doors to the rest of the world and the west gained dominance of the trade routes.

SILK
Silk fabric was first developed in China around 3500 BC. Legend has it that it was discovered by the Empress Lei-Tzu who watched a cocoon fall into her tea and unravel. The Emperors of China strove to keep sericulture a secret so as to maintain the Chinese monopoly, using the ‘Silk Road’ trade routes to export it, but by 140 AD, it had been established in India. The Roman Empire wore and traded in Chinese silk and the Emperor Tiberius even tried to introduce sumptuary laws to prohibit its wearing except by the Imperial family. Despite its popularity, the secret of silk-making only reached Europe around 550 AD, smuggled by monks working for the Byzantine emperor Justinian. All the looms and weavers were located within the Great Palace complex in Constantinople. The Muslim Moors brought silk-making with them into Spain when they conquered the Iberian peninsular. Italy was the most important silk producer in the Medieval age and Lucca financed itself through silk production. By the 15th century, silk production had reached France where it centered around the city of Lyons. James I attempted to introduce sericulture to England in the 17th century but the attempt failed.

THE FORBIDDEN CITY
The Forbidden City in China’s capital Beijing was built between 1406 and 1420 by the third Ming ‘Yongle’ Emperor, Zhu Di. It remained the Chinese Imperial Palace for 500 years until the abdication of the last emperor, Puyi, and the end of the Qing Dynasty in 1912. The complex consists of 980 buildings and covers 720,
000 m2. Construction required more than a million workers who were guarded by nearly a million soldiers. The Grand Canal south of Beijing had to be completely renovated to bring grain up from the south to feed them all. The cost was crippling to the Chinese economy and, when during a thunderstorm in 1421, much of the Forbidden City was burnt down, the Confuscian Scholar class was able to reassert its ascendence over the eunuch supporters of the emperor by saying that the Son of Heaven had had his mandate to rule withdrawn. Zhu Di died two years later. The Forbidden City became a World heritage Site in 1987. During the Cultural Revolution, Premier Zhou Enlai saved the city by sending a battalion of troops to guard it from the student revolutionaries.

THE BATTLE OF TALAS
The battle of Talas was fought in 751 AD between the Arab Abbassid Caliphate of Baghdad and the Chinese Tang Dynasty, then ruled by Emperor Xuanzong. It was fought between the two great powers of the 8th century for control of Central Asia. The battle was a victory for the Arabs and marked the end of the Tang’s western expansion, and indeed any subsequent Chinese dynasty. The Abbasids were the rising power in the east, having defeated the rival Umayyad Caliphate at the Battle of the Zab in 750 AD. The battle is important because it secured control of the Silk Road for the Arabs and allowed the transfer of much Chinese technology westwards from captured Chinese, including paper-making technology and sericulture.

The Byzantine Empire

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Places

Battles

The Byzantine Empire was the eastern half of the Roman Empire that survived the barbarian invasions of the fifth century and continued until its conquest by the Ottoman Turks in 1461 (the fall of Trebizond). Its capital city was Constantinople, built by the Roman Emperor Constantine in 330. During most of its 1000-year existence, it was the predominant economic, cultural and military force in Europe and Constantinople was by far Europe’s largest and richest city, its impregnable Theodosian Walls being added during the reign of Theodosius II (408-450). During the reign of Justinian I (527-565), the Empire reached its greatest extent after reconquering North Africa, Southern Spain and Italy and, in 565, its population reached 26,000,000. During the reign of Maurice, the Empire expanded to the east but this resulted in a twenty-year war with Sassanid Persia which exhausted the Empire’s resources and left it vulnerable to the Arab conquests of the 7th and 8th centuries when it lost much of its territory in the east. The Arab Umayyad Caliphate besieged Constantinople twice in 674-8 and 717-8 but was defeated both times by the new Byzantine invention of Greek Fire. The Empire was dealt its mortal blow in 1204 by the Fourth Crusade which sacked Constantinople and divided up its empire with Venice. It was then that a branch of the Imperial Family set up a new dynasty in Trebizond. The main empire was recovered in 1261 but was bankrupt. Its last two hundred years were spent in inexorable decline until the only parts left were Constantinople and the Despotate of Mistra in the Greek Peleponnese. Constantinople fell to the Ottoman Turks in 1453 and Mistra in 1460.

EAST-WEST SCHISM
The East-West Schism was the division of Christianity into the Eastern Orthodox Church and the western Roman Catholic Church. Relations had been embittered long before the formal split in 1053 by theological disputes such as the source of the Holy Spirit (‘filoque’), whether leavened or unleavened bread should be used in the Eucharist and the Pope’s claim to universal jurisdiction. The breach worsened when Constantinople, seat of the Eastern Patriarch, was captured and sacked by the Latin Fourth Crusade in 1204 which claimed to be acting partly for religious reasons. The Second Council of Lyon in 1274 and the Council of Florence in 1438 attempted to reunite the two churches, the latter prompted largely by the Byzantine Emperor’s desire to bring another crusade from the west to save Constantinople. But despite the delegates agreeing the terms of reunion, the settlement proved impossible to sell to the people of Constantinople and, when the city fell in 1453, it was still stubbornly Orthodox. The breach between the two churches remains to this day.

THE ARAB CONQUESTS AND SIEGES OF CONSTANTINOPLE
The Byzantine Empire very nearly fell to the Arab conquests of the 7th and 8th centuries. These conquests began soon after the death of the Prophet Muhammad in 632 AD and lasted around a hundred years. They encompassed the conquests of the Arabian peninsular (under Muhammad), Persia, Transoxiana, Sindh, Syria, Armenia, Egypt, North Africa, Visigothic Spain and Southern Italy. They brought about the collapse of the Sassanid Empire of Persia and huge territorial loss for the Byzantine Empire. Constantinople was besieged twice in 674-78 and 717-718 AD. The first siege, led by the Umayyad Caliph Muawiyah blockaded the city and used the Cyzicus peninsular to winter, returning every spring to launch attacks against the city’s walls. Eventually, the Byzantine Emperor Constantine IV destroyed the Arab navy using a new invention, Greek Fire. The second siege, also conducted by the Umayyad Caliphate, was a combined land and sea offensive that was again defeated by the use of Greek Fire.

MANUEL II PALAIOLOGUS
Manuel II Paelaiologus was Emperor of Byzantium from 1391 to 1425. As the second son, he inherited the throne from his father John VI Kantakouzene after his elder brother’s failed attempt at usurpation. He inherited an empire that comprised Constantinople, some small territory around it and the Greek Peleponnese, (the Despotate of Mistra). To secure his throne, he had to defeat his nephew John VII who seized the throne in 1376 and again in 1390. He did this with the help of Venice. The Ottoman Sultan Bayezid besieged Constantinople from 1394 to 1402. In 1399, Manuel went on a long trip to Europe to seek assisitance (Henry IV of England entertained him at Eltham Palace but didn’t give him any money). In 1396, a crusade led by King Sigismund of Hungary and the Comte de Nevers, eldest son of the Duke of Burgundy, marched to the aid of Constantinople but was decimated on the field of Nicopolis. The defeat of the Turks at Ankara in 1402 bought the Byzantines some time which Manuel spent trying to bolster the defences of Mistra. During the last years of his life, Manuel handed over the running of the empire to his son John VIII and went again to Europe to seek support. He died in 1425.

PLETHON
Georgius Gemistus was born in Constantinople in 1355. He received his education in Adrianopolis, which had fallen to the Turks in 1365 but remained a place of learning. As an early admirer of Plato, he changed his name to Plethon when, in middle age, he settled in Mistra in the Greek Peleponnese. There he taught philosophy, astronomy, history and geography and was made Chief Magistrate by Despot Theodore II. He developed a theory of Hellenism which advocated a return to Spartan militarism and worship of the ancient gods. He wrote a detailed comparison of Aristotle and Plato, De Differentiis, which was sufficiently heretical to make Emperor Manuel have him confined to Mistra, The Emperor John took him to the Council of Florence in 1438 where his Platonic teaching made him a celebrity. Cosimo De’ Medici asked him to stay and found a Platonic academy but he preferred to return to his home in Mistra. He died there in 1452. Ten years later, the Conditiore Sigismundo Malatesta brought his body back to Rimini where it remains today.

THEODORE I PALAIOLOGOS, LORD OF MISTRA
Theodore Palaiologos ruled as Despot of Mistra in the Greek Peleponnese from 1383 until his death in 1407. He was born in 1355, youngest son of the Byzantine Emperor John V Palaiologos and his wife Helena Kantakouzene. His elder brother was the Emperor Manuel II Palaiologos. In his early twenties he was imprisoned when his eldest brother Andronikos usurped the throne. He was appointed Despot of Mistra when his father was restored to the throne in 1379. Theodore was successful in expanding Byzantine territory in the Peleponnese at the expense of local Latin lords. He strengthened the Hexamilion Wall at Corinth and conquered both Corinth and Athens in 1395/96. The Ottomans then invaded the Peleponnese but didn’t occupy it. In 1400, Bayezid turned his attention to besieging Constantinople but were defeated by the Mongol Tamerlane at the battle of Ankara in 1402. Thereafter Mistra remained at peace until Theodore’s death in 1407. Theodore married Bartolomea Acciaioli, daughter of Duke Nerio I of Athens. They had no children and Theodore was succeeded by his nephew, also called Theodore.

JUSTINIAN I
Known as ‘the Great’, Justinian was one of the most successful Byzantine emperors ever, ruling from 527 to 565 AD. In his reign, Justinian tried to conquer the lost western half of the classical Roman Empire and, in so doing, expanded Byzantine territories to their greatest extent. His brilliant general Belisarius conquered the Vandal Kingdom in North Africa and restored Italy, Sicily and Dalmatia to the Empire after more than half a century of barbarian control. Meanwhile, the prefect Liberius reclaimed much of Spain. These campaigns increased the Empire’s annual revenue by over a million solidi. During his reign, Justinian rewrote Roman Law, which remains the basis of civil law in many modern states. He also oversaw a blossoming of Byzantine culture including the masterpiece of the Hagia Sophia Church in Constantinople. He married the remarkable Theodora, a tough ex-courtesan, who persuaded him not to flee in the face of riots, famously saying: “the purple makes an excellent shroud.” They had no children and Justinian was succeeded by Justin II.

LATE BYZANTINE ARMY
The late Byzantine army (12th century onwards) was made up of four elements: troops based in the capital Constantinople, various provincial armies, foreign mercenaries (particularly Turks, Serbs, Albanians) and auxiliaries provided by allies. Native Greek troops and what was left of the Varangian Guard, the elite royal bodyguard of mainly English descent, would have been stationed in Constantinople. Albanian mercenaries were used extensively in the Despotate of Mistra in the 14th and 15th centuries, having been allowed to settle there. The entire Byzantine army strength rarely rose above 10,000 men over this period, a fraction of the Ottoman strength. The civil wars of the early 14th century were fought mainly by Ottoman and Serb auxiliary troops and crippled the Byzantine military potential beyond recovery. The Byzantine navy comprised 80 ships when it was disbanded in 1283 by the Emperor Andonikos II to save costs. Thereafter, the Empire largely relied on the maritime republics of Venice and Genoa to provide ships and crew in exchange for trade concessions. By the end of the 14th century, the navy had just twelve galleys, all in need of repair.

VARANGIAN GUARD
The Varangian Guard was an elite unit of the Byzantine Army who acted as a sort of Praetorian Guard to the Emperor. It was first formed under the Emperor Basil II in 988 AD and its earliest recruits came from Scandinavia. After the Norman Conquest of 1066, 5,000 Anglo-Saxon warriors sailed to Constantinople rather than live under the Normans and, by the reign of Alexios Komnenos in the late 11th century, the Guard was almost entirely composed of Englishmen. The Anglo-Saxons and Vikings shared a tradition of oath-bound service which made them ideal as a personal bodyguard. They were known for their huge double-handed axes, their distralia, and usually fought on foot. They were prominent in the 1204 sack of Constantinople by the Fourth Crusade. Many became wealthy through their privilege of getting first pick of the loot when a city fell, and for the tradition that allowed them to fill their helmets with gold when an Emperor died. They were only used in battle at decisive moments, rather like Napoleon’s Garde.

GREEK FIRE
Greek fire was developed by the Byzantines towards the end of the 7th Century. It was an incendiary weapon thought to combine pine resin, naphtha, quicklime and sulphur, although its exact composition was a closely-guarded state secret. Its huge advantage was that it could burn on water, so it was used largely on siphon-equipped ships as a flame-thrower against other ships. It was nothing short of a wonder-weapon and was responsible for many key victories, most notably against two Arab sieges of Constantinople. It came at the nick of time, just when the Arabs had overrun Syria, Palestine and Egypt and, in 672, were at the gates of Constantinople. The importance of its discovery led to it being ascribed to divine intervention. Greek Fire continued to be mentioned in the 12th century and may have been used against the Franks during the 1203/4 capture of the Constantinople by the Fourth Crusade. However, there is no report of its use thereafter and it is possible that the secret of its composition was somehow lost.

MALVASIA WINE
‘Malvasia’ is the Italian name for this rich, sweet wine that first came from the region around Monemvasia in the Peleponnese and, in Medieval times, became its chief export. So prolific was the wine then that wine shops in Venice were known as malvasie. It was an expensive wine and was much favoured by the aristocracy of Europe. In England, it was known as ‘Malmsey’ and Richard III’s brother, the Duke of Clarence, was said to have been put to death by drowning in a vat of Malmsey. The Malvasia wine of today is nothing like the variety drunk then.

MISTRA
Also known as Mystras, Mistra was the capital of the Byzantine Despotate of Mistra in the Greek Peleponnese between the 13th and 15th centuries. It is situated on the slopes of Mount Taygetos near to the ancient site of Sparta. The valley of the Evrotas River makes the land around it fertile and productive. It began in 1249 when the Norman Prince William II Villehouardin built a palace there following the fall of Constantinople to the Fourth Crusade in 1204. In 1261, the Latins ceded Mistra as ransom for the release of Villehouardin and the Byzantine emperor made the budding city the seat of the new Despotate of the Morea. Under the Despot Theodore, it became the second city in the empire after Constantinople and began a golden age of art and culture when many of the leading Byzantine thinkers moved there form the capital. The last Byzantine emperor, Constantine XI was Despot of Mistra before coming to the throne. The last Despot, his brother Demetrius, surrendered the city to the Ottoman Turks in 1460.

MONEMVASIA
Monemvasia, situated on the eastern coast of the Greek Peleponnese, was an important Byzantine trading port, servicing the trade route from Venice and Genoa to Constantinople and the east. Although part of the Despotate of Mistra, it was fiercly independent and had its own Archon as ruler. The city was rich through trade and the export of Malvasia wine, a sweet, expensive wine much favoured by the rich of Europe (known as Malmsey in England). The town’s name means ‘single entrance’ in Greek and it is apt. Monemvasia is perched on a rock in the middle of the Mirtoon Sea and was only connected to the mainland via a lifting bridge. During the Byzantine empire, the city built galleys for the Byzantine navy and provided much of its manpower. After the fall of Constantinople in 1453, Monemvasia held out against Ottoman sieges in 1458 and 1460. In 1464, it was passed to Venice who rules it until 1540 when it was taken by the Ottoman Turks.

HEXAMILION WALL
The Hexamilion Wall was a defensive wall constructed across the Isthmus of Corinth guarding the only land route into the Peleponnese from mainland Greece. Earliest traces of defenses date back to the Mycenean period although the wall itself was built between 408 and 450 AD in the reign of the Emperor Theodosius II during the time of the great barbarian invasions into the Roman Empire. The wall consisted of towers, sea bastions and at least one fortress. Its northern gate functioned as the formal entrance into the Peleponnese. It was an enormous undertaking and every structure in the region was cannibalized for stone. In the reign of Justinian, more towers were added to reach a total of 153. In 1415, the Emperor Manuel personally supervised repairs over a period of forty days. The wall was breached in 1423 and again in 1431 by the Ottoman Turks. The Despot Constantine restored the wall again in 1444 but it was breached again by the Turks in 1446. It was finally abandoned during the final Ottoman invasion of the Peleponnese in 1460.

MASTIC VILLAGES
These extraordinary villages, known collectively as the ‘Mastichochoria’, were built by the Genoese Mahona (joint-stock trading company) that ruled Chios from 1346 to 1566. The villages, essentially mazes, have narrow, winding streets which quite often result in dead-ends. They have a fortified tower in their centre with enough room inside for all the villagers. They have walkways and bridges above the streets to allow passage from house to house. They have ‘sgraffito’ painted on their walls which are bizarre geometric shapes. There are seven villages, of which the most famous are Mesta and Pyrgi, and they were built to deter marauding Turkish corsairs who were taking the islanders (the Genoese workforce) into slavery. Their construction in the south of the island is an indication of how valuable the mastic trade was to the Genoese at that time.
They are well worth visiting today.

THE BATTLE OF MANZIKERT
The Battle of Manzikert was fought between the Byzantine Empire and the Seljuk Turks on August 26th 1071, in Anatolia. The Seljuk Turks, led by Ap Arslan, were the predecessors of the Ottomans and their emphatic victory over the Emperor Romanos IV Diogenes (who was captured) is often seen as the start-point of the Byzantine Empire’s inexorable decline from then on. The defeat resulted in civil conflicts and a financial crisis that severely weakened the Empire’s ability to defend its borders. This led to the mass movement of Turks into central Anatolia and renewed pressure on the Empire’s eastern borders.

The Venetian Empire

People

Trade

Battles

The Venetian Republic, also known as La Serenissima, or ‘The Most Serene’, existed for over a millennium, from the late 7th century until 1797. It began as a collection of lagoon communities banded together for defense against the invading barbarians in the wake of the collapse of the Western Roman Empire. It was firstly a Byzantine province but soon developed Republican instincts. In the High Middle Ages, it became rich through its control of trade between Europe and the Levant. In 1182, there was a vicious anti-western riot in Constantinople in which Venetians were a particular target and relations between Byzantium and Venice became strained. In 1204, the geriatric Doge Dandolo persuaded the leaders of the Fourth Crusade to divert from their purpose and capture Constantinople, in part to pay for the shortfall in what they owed Venice for its construction of their fleet. It was one of the most profitable sacks of a city in history and the Venetians not only brought much of the city’s riches back to Venice (including the four bronze horses of the Hippodrome) but also managed to claim a significant part of the Byzantine Empire, notably the island bases of the Dalmatian coast which they could use to protect their trade routes. Early in the 15th century, the Venetians also began to expand into Italy and in 1489, the island of Cyprus was annexed. But the new threat of the Ottoman naval power led to a series of wars against the Turks for control of the Adriatic and Aegean Seas through the 15th and 16th centuries. In 1480, the Turks took Rhodes. In 1509, Venice was defeated by the League of Cambrai states which included France, the pope and the Holy Roman Emperor. Although Venice won the seven year war eventually, 1509 marked the end of Venetian expansion and the beginning of gentle decline. The following two centuries saw the maintenance of a precarious and decadent wealth until Venice surrendered to the army of Napoleon in 1797 without a whimper.

ENRICO DANDOLO AND THE SACK OF CONSTANTINOPLE 1204
Enrico Dandolo was the 42nd Doge of Venice from 1192 until his death. He is infamous for his role in the sack of Constantinople in which he, aged ninety and blind, led the Venetian contingent. In March 1172, the Byzantine government had seized the goods of Venetians living in the Empire and had imprisoned many. Dandolo took a senior role in the disastrous retaliatory expedition that followed and it may have been these events that left him with an abiding hatred for all things Byzantine. In 1202, the knights of the Fourth Crusade were stranded in Venice, unable to pay for the ships they’d commissioned after far fewer troops arrived than expected. Dandolo allowed the debt to be suspended if the Crusaders retook the port of Zadar for Venice. Shortly after taking Zadar, Alexius Angelus, son of the deposed Byzantine Emperor Isaac II, offered the Crusaders an enormous bribe to put him back on the throne in Constantinople. This suited Dandolo, who had just secured a trading agreement with the Mamluk Caliphate of Egypt to where the Crusade was headed. In April 1204, Constantinople was taken and comprehensively sacked. The Franks then took over most of the Byzantine Empire and Venice received valuable outposts down the Dalmatian coast and beyond. From then on, the Venetian Empire prospered and the Byzantine Empire went into a tailspin of decline.

VENETIAN TRADE
Situated at the top of the Adriatic Sea and ruling over a coastal empire that protected its shipping routes, by 1400 Venice was the pre-eminent trading power in Europe, if not the world. The world’s produce and the world’s money could be exchanged at the Rialto, the city’s central market, where merchants from every corner of the world could do business. The Venetians were innovators in developing techniques of trade, methods of finance, insurance and patent protection. But only the aristocracy (the Council members) was allowed to practice the profitable long distance trade. These 1000 families provided much of the capital investment to fund trade with faraway places. Venice was able to offer protection to its trading fleets through the empire of coastal defences that it had taken from Byzantium after the fourth crusade (1204) and by its powerful galley fleet, built and maintained by the city’s Arsenale, which guarded huge convoys sent around the world. The city’s own main traded products at this time would have been silk and glass.

WAR OF CHIOGGIA
The War of Chioggia, between Venice and Genoa, lasted from 1378 to 1381 and the Venetians were the victors. The rivalry of these two maritime states over trade with the Levant was longstanding. Since the 1204 dismemberment of the Byzantine Empire, Venice’s new territories in the Adriatic had brought it into conflict with Hungary and Padua, both of whom allied themselves with Genoa. To begin with, the war was fought over control of the Island of Tenedos. Then, after battles at Cape d’Anzio and Trau, the Venetian admiral Pisani was defeated off Pola in Istria, losing most of his ships. On his return he was imprisoned. In 1379, The Genoese, Hungarians and Paduans unexpectedly entered the Venetian lagoon and captured the town of Chioggia. The Venetian’s peace proposal was rejected and Venice determined to fight to the last. By popular demand, Pisani was released. By sinking obstructions into every escape channel, Pisani trapped the Genoese at Chioggia and then stormed the town. The Genoese relieving force arrived too late and the Venetians won a crushing victory which gave them control of the Adriatic and financially crippled their main trade competitor.

The Italian States

People

Armies

Trade

THE ITALIAN RENAISSANCE
The word comes from the French for ‘re-birth’ and describes the cultural movement that began in Northern Italy in the 14th century and spread throughout Europe over the next three hundred years. It started in Florence with a resurgence of learning based on classical sources and educational reform. In art, it encompassed the development of linear perspective and a more natural reality in painting. In politics, the Renaissance challenged traditional hierarchical governing structures with more Humanist notions of rational public good. It particularly affected the area of science where an increased reliance on observation led to experimentation across many spectrums. Artists like Michangelo, Donatello and Leonardo da Vinci became polymaths, combining the disciplines of art and science, and inspired the term ‘Renaissance man’. Humanist leaders, such as Cosimo De Medici and the Dukes of Urbino became lavish patrons and developed courts where new ideas were discussed and developed. The movement was given new impetus by the Council of Florence in 1438, sponsored by Cosimo de Medici, which began the migration of Greek scholars and texts to Italy over the fall of Constantinople in 1453. The invention of printing in the late Fifteenth Century led to the rapid dissemination of ideas from Italy to the rest of Europe.

WESTERN SCHISM (1378-1417)
The Western Schism or ‘Papal Schism’ was the period of nearly forty years when the Catholic Church had two popes, one ruling from Avignon in France and the other from Rome. It began with the return of the papacy to Rome under Gregory XI, thus ending the Avignon Papacy which had fled the violence of Rome but had become corrupt. After Gregory died in 1378, Pope Urban VI proved so difficult that the majority of cardinals removed themselves back to Avignon and elected another pope, Clement VII. The split in the papacy soon escalated into a Europe-wide schism where half of the kingdoms supported one and half the other. The schism continued after the deaths of both claimants, with Boniface IX crowned in Rome and Benedict XIII in Avignon. When Boniface died in 1404, the eight cardinals of the Roman enclave offered to refrain from electing a new pope if Benedict would step down. This he didn’t and the schism continued. Eventually, the cardinals of both sides deserted their popes and organized a Council at Pisa, electing a third pope, Alexander V, who was quickly succeeded by John XXIII (who was deposed four years later at the Council of Constance for a range of crimes including murder, incest and sodomy). However this Council did manage to achieve the resignations of both other popes and, by 1417, the new pope, Martin V was recognized as the single pontiff.

HISTORY OF THE REPUBLIC OF FLORENCE
Florence was founded in 59 BC and named Florentia. From the 12th century, the city was governed by an autonomous medieval commune but suffered internal strife between the Ghibellines and Guelfs, supporters of the Holy Roman Emperor and Pope respectively. The city rose to become one of the most populous (90,000 inhabitants in the mid-14th century) and richest in Europe helped by its gold florin, first struck in 1252, which became the dominant trade coin of Christendom. In 1406, Florence subjugated its rival Pisa. By the mid century power had shifted from the aristocracy to a mercantile elite, in particular the Medici family who, as bankers to the Curia, became fabulously rich and spent much money beautifying the city. About a quarter of the city’s population was supported by the woolen industry and the Arte de Lana was its most powerful guild. In 1438, the city became host to the Council of Florence which attempted union between the Catholic and Orthodox Churches. In the late 15th century, the radical Dominican monk Savonarola persuaded the Florentines to reject the material excess of Medici rule but was burned in 1498. The ten month siege of Florence (1529-30) by the Spanish ended the Republic of Florence as Alessandro de’ Medici became ruler of the city.

ITALIAN CITY STATES
The city-states of central and northern Italy were a political and economic phenomenon that grew from the 10th century as a struggle to gain independence from the Holy Roman Empire. They included Venice, Milan, Florence, Genoa, Pisa, Siena, Lucca and several others and they borrowed heavily from the republican ideals of the Roman Empire. Trade, ship-building and banking helped support the powerful navies of the early maritime republics of Venice, Genoa, Pisa and Amalfi. Geography, the absence of central political structures, a doubling of the population between the 12th and 13th centuries and an agrarian revolution led to the emergence of huge cities (Venice, Milan and Florence had over 100,000 inhabitants in the 13th century) and a boom in commerce. These cities witnessed the birth of capitalism aided by innovative banking practice. Church control and imperial power were kept at bay and the conditions were laid for the artistic and intellectual changes produced by the Renaissance. By 1300, as the Renaissance was beginning, Italy was the economic capital of Europe. Discovery of the Americas in the late 1400’s as well as new trade routes to Africa and India brought about the decline of Italian economic power and a decline in fortune for the city states thereafter.

GIOVANNI DE’ MEDICI
Giovanni De’ Medici was the founder of the Medici Bank of Florence, and father to Cosimo De’ Medici who would make it into the most powerful financial organization in Europe. He was born in 1360 in Florence into a family of modest means. He served his banking apprenticeship in Rome, working for his uncle, where he learnt both the business and opportunity of the Roman Curia’s banking. He helped end the Western Schism of two popes in Italy and France, by backing Baldasarre Cossa who eventually became Pope John XXIII and rewarded him with the Curia’s banking. He set up branches of the bank across Europe, making each an individual company so as to avoid general default. At his death in 1429, he was one of the richest men in Florence.

COSIMO DE’ MEDICI
Cosimo De’ Medici was born in 1389, son of the founder of the Medici Bank, Giovanni De’ Medici. He inherited his father’s financial acumen and built the bank into the most powerful financial institution in Europe, at the same time amassing a fortune of some 150,000 gold florins (around £20 million today.) He used his wealth to gain political dominance of Florence, although he was briefly exiled from the city in 1433 when a faction led by the Strozzi and Albizzi families became envious of his power. On his return, he made constitutional changes to secure his control of the city and continued a programme of lavish patronage which embellished Florence’s stature as a leading centre of art. He patronized great artists such as Michelozzi, Donatello and Brunelleschi who completed the miraculous dome of the Cathedral. He was a humanist, a collector of classical manuscripts and sponsored Marsilio Ficino in his setting up of a Platonic school. He was instrumental in bringing the Council of Florence to his city in 1438, and used his influence to bring about the reunification of the Catholic and Orthodox Churches, which was its aim. He also collected a vast library which he shared with his humanist circle of men like Niccolo Niccoli and Leonardo Bruni. Cosimo died in 1464 and was succeeded by his son Piero the Gouty.

ANTIPOPE JOHN XXIII
Pope John XXIII was born on the island of Ischia in the Kingdom of Naples in 1370 into a noble but impoverished family. His early life included soldiering and piracy and he was sentenced to death, with his brother, for the latter. He studied law at the University of Bologna and in 1392 entered the service of Pope Boniface XI. Giovanni Di’ Medici became interested in him as a candidate to end the Papal Schism and bought him his Cardinal’s hat in 1402. In 1408 he was one of the seven cardinals who deserted Pope Gregory XII and convened the Council of Pisa at which a third pope, Alexander V, was elected. This pope died shortly afterwards while staying with Cossa, who himself became Pope John XXIII. But at the subsequent Council of Constance, Cossa was charged with a spectacular range of crimes including incest, murder and sodomy. He fled, was arrested and then deposed. He retired to Florence and died in 1422 and was given a magnificent tomb by Giovanni De’ Medici who’d supported him to the end.

CONDOTTIERI
The Condottieri were the leaders of the mercenary companies that were hired by the City States of Northern Italy and the Papacy to fight their many wars in the 13th-16th centuries. In the 13th century, these states were becoming rich through their trade with the Levant and, without armies of their own, were able to make contracts (condotta) with companies of professional soldiers out of work since the collapse of the Christian states in the Holy Land. These early soldiers were usually German or Spanish. The companies’ size varied, but the ‘Great Company’ could put 3,000 barbute (a knight and a sergeant) into the field. Once the companies realized their military power in Italy, the Condottieri became increasingly capricious and ambitious, often disinclined to bring profitable wars to a conclusion and changing sides mid-battle if the bribe was big enough. The winter non-fighting months became a sort of transfer market. From the fifteenth century, most Condottieri were landless Italian nobles. Then princes such as Sigismundo Malatesta, Lord of Rimini, and Frederico da Montefeltro, Duke of Urbino brought some glamour to the trade. The decline of the Condottieri began in 1494 with the first great foreign invasion of Italy by the French king, Charles VIII. By 1550, they had largely disappeared.

MAHONA OF CHIOS
A mahona was the first kind of joint stock company to be established in Europe and was a fore-runner of the East India Company. It was used by the Genoese to expand their dominions in the Levant in the 14th century. The most famous was that set up in Chios, the Mahona Giustiniani (named in honour of the Byzantine Emperor Justinian). The Genoese leased the island off the Byzantines from 1346 to 1453 and thereafter paid tribute to the Turks, enabling them to avoid conquest of the island until 1566. The mahona was set up to exloit the trade of alum from the Turkish-occupied mainland and the trade in a unique kind of mastic that only grew on Chios and could be used for a variety of uses including breath-freshening and embalming. Giovanni Giustiniani Longo was leader of the mahona at the time of the fall of Constantinople and brought 500 men at arms from the island to help in its defense.

MASTIC
The mastic produced on the Island of Chios is quite unlike any other produced in the world and is due to the unique climate of the island. It seeps from the small mastic trees during the harvesting months between July and October and is known as ‘the Tears of St Isidore’ after the patron saint of the island. It emerges from the tree trunk as a liquid after incisions have been cut. It falls to the chalk-covered ground where it solidifies into a hard resin. Its uses are, and were, many. It has been used as a medicine since antiquity, as a remedy for snakebites (useful on Chios which was known as Ophioussa or ‘having snakes’), as an embalming agent and as a filler of dental cavities in India and Persia. From the 15th century onwards, it was used extensively by the Ottoman Sultan’s harem as a breath freshener. During the Ottoman rule of Chios, mastic was worth its weight in gold and the penalty for stealing it was execution by order of the Sultan. During the Ottoman massacre on Chios in 1822, only the mastic growers in the south of the island were spared. Today it is used in everything from chewing gum to liqueur.

ALUM
After salt and iron, alum was the most important commodity of the Middle Ages. This gritty, white sulphate was used extensively in the clothing industry. It was used to cleanse raw wool of its grease and everyone wore wool. It was used to fix the dyes in clothing and to cure the leather used in saddle-making and footwear. In the 1450’s the annual European market was worth more than 300,000 florins, a huge amount. Most of the alum was mined in the Gulf of Izmir and in the region of Trebizond in northern Anatolia, both regions goverened by the Ottoman Turks. However, in the 1460’s, a huge deposit was found in the mountains of Tolfa, north-east of Rome. These were papal lands and since monopolies were banned by the Catholic Church, the Medici family were invited to help exploit the opportunity. This new source of supply drove the prices down and severly damaged the well-being of the Medici bank.

The Mamluk Empire

People

Battles

THE MAMLUK EMPIRE
The Mamluks were a slave soldier caste mainly of Kipchak Turkish origin (from the steppe), that lasted from the 9th to the 19th centuries. Over that time, the Mamluks became a powerful military caste in Egypt, the Levant, Iraq and India. They began as soldier slaves to the Abbassid Caliphs in Baghdad and, by the end of the 9th century, dominated the military. They were popular with rulers because they had no link to any established power structure. Under Saladin and the Ayyubids of Egypt, the power of the Mamluks increased until they seized the Sutlanate in 1250 and ruled for nearly three centuries (1250-1517). Qutuz was the first Mamluk Sultan and it was his general Baibars that inflicted the first defeat suffered by a Mongol army in open battle at the field of Ain Jalut. Baibars then took over the Sultanate. The Mamluks defeated the Mongols a second time at the Battle of Homs and then went on to retake the rest of the Holy Land from the Christian Crusaders. The Sultan Barquq made an enemy of Tamerlane by executing his emissaries and his son, Faraj, lost both Aleppo and Damascus to the Mongol Horde in 1400. When Tamerlane died in 1405, Faraj was able to retake Syria. The Mamluk dynasty of Egypt ended when the Ottoman Sultan Selim captured Cairo in January 1517.

IBN KHALDUN
Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406) was an Arab Muslim historian, philosopher and economist who is often seen as the father of modern historiography. He was born in Tunis into an upper-class Arab family, receiving a classical Islamic education in languages, law and jurisprudence. At an early age, he sought political office with a variety of Arab rulers but his perpetual scheming landed him in prison more than once. He began to write his masterpiece, the Muqaddimah (History of the World) in middle age but spent his final years as qadi in the Mamluk court in Cairo, advising its rulers. It was in this capacity that he was sent with the Mamluk army to Damascus, and was lowered over the walls of the city to negotiate with Tamerlane who was besieging it. He spent some time in the Mongol camp before being released and returning to the Maghreb where he died in 1406.

THE BATTLE OF AIN JALUT
The Battle of Ain Jalut was fought on 3rd September 1260 between the Mamluk Empire of Egypt and the Mongols. The battle took place in Galilee in the Jezreel Valley. Its importance lies in the fact that it was the first time that the Mongol advance had been checked in open battle, and Egypt (and possibly Europe) was delivered from the Mongol hordes. The Mongol Mongke Khan, grandson of Genghis Khan, had chosen his brother Hulagu Khan to complete his grandfather’s ambition of world empire. An enormous army was assembled in Persia and Hulagu proceeded south, destroying whole civilisations in his path, including the 500-year-old Abbasid Caliphate of Baghdad and the Ayyubid dynasty in Damascus. But on the death of Mongke, Hulagu returned east with much of his army. Thus the 20,000-strong Mamluk army under Qutuz and Baibars faced a similar number of Mongols. The battle was fiercely fought but ultimately won by the Mamluks who used explosive handguns to frighten the Mongol horses. Shortly after the battle, Qutuz was assassinated and Baibars became Sultan.

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The Walls of Byzantium is the first novel in the sweeping, historical series The Mistra Chronicles by James Heneage. Set in fifteenth century Europe during a time of warring states and growing empires, the tale is shaped by the quest for a hidden treasure, rumoured to bequeath riches beyond belief and guarded by successive generations of famed warriors.

In the midst of growing unrest, rivals battle for this treasure, each desperate to secure its power for their own nations. But no-one can discover its whereabouts; nor even knows if it is still in the possession of those born to guard it…